4 ms·

How to tolerate annoying things

60 points by zdw 1y ago

gregschlom 1y ago
I've been reading No Mud, No Lotus recently (https://www.parallax.org/product/no-mud-no-lotus/ https://www.parallax.org/product/no-mud-no-lotus/) by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and this is very much the same advice. This book has brought me immense joy, I'd recommend it to anyone. It's fascinating how much Buddhism has gotten "right".
- _yb2s 1y ago
  This article is about ACT which borrows these techniques from the ancient stoics, but there is a lot of similarities between stoicism and buddhism, zen especially.
- Lyngbakr 1y ago
  I certainly agree with your take on Buddhism, but I often find that sage advice is buried amongst spiritual waffle in Buddhist books.
  - colechristensen 1y ago
    But that's what religion is, wisdom and nonsense mixed together by people who didn't yet have the benefit of the great filter to separate the wisdom from the nonsense: science.
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    The sheer number of annoying twats who tell me that The Book of I Ching holds great secrets has defnitely helped obscure any great secrets it contains.
- sph 11mo ago
  Thank you, I'll pick it up based on your recommendation alone.
begueradj 1y ago
Can't read the article from phone.
- faeyanpiraat 1y ago
  That must be annoying
- Aurornis 1y ago
  For what it’s worth, site works without problems on iPhone.
- steve-atx-7600 1y ago
  DAMNIT!!!!!
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  That's how they test your patience.
ndr42 1y ago
From the article: Micro-stressors such as running late [...] represent the unavoidable pain that comes with being human. Is running late really unavoidable? I think there are proven strategies to avoid it. (My wife and one of my sons on the other hand would agree that it is in fact unavoidable) Edit: added missing word
- svat 1y ago
  In your case it may help to read it as: Micro-stressors such as others running late [...] represent the unavoidable pain that comes with being human.
- m_a_g 1y ago
  In the long run, it is unavoidable. No matter how prepared you are, there will be something that will cause you to run late. It's just a matter of how frequently this happens.
- mercanlIl 1y ago
  In practice? Yes it’s unavoidable. Unless you build in enough buffer to account for _every_ possible scenario out of your control, the probability of running late is non-zero.
- cm2012 1y ago
  I think 15% of people have a true mental block on timing
- Aurornis 1y ago
  Not the best example they could have used because the root cause is ambiguous. I try to be prepared and on-time, but being late some times is unavoidable if there’s a car accident on the freeway that leaves me locked in a traffic, I get a flat tire, my flight is delayed, or any number of other unpredictable things outside of my control happen. I think that’s what the article is trying to talk about.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- 1y ago
hexbin010 1y ago
I have insane admiration for and quite a serious amount of jealousy of people who are able to sail through life with with every setback sailing right past them, leaving no trace or mark. I've noticed it more in people who had a comfortable upringing and no money worries. Oh dear, dinner is burnt? No worries just order takeout! Lost your passport a few days before a holiday - no sweat, just pay the fast track processing fee. Car broken down? Just jump in a taxi. Coffee ruined your top? Just buy another one. Etc. Money often means far fewer worries in life, and kids must definitely notice and feel that. As you can probably guess, I grew up relatively poor. Every day/week something would be causing my parents stress, often related to money. No amount of grounding themselves or belly breathing would have alleviated the stress. I know the article is about smaller things, many of which of money can't fix, but I do wonder if growing up in a low-stress environment (largely because of no money issues) instills something that enables you to not sweat the minor things in life
- throw_this_one 1y ago
  Probably it's learned behavior from the parents. When your parents had good intentions but really panicked or scolded you like the world was going to end when you did something wrong... that can have a subconscious impact in your life that every wrong move and every thing that happened could be a matter of survival.
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with money, or even the stress of the environment inherently, I think it's all about how people choose to deal with their problems. You could be raised in a poor home and grow up to a work in a "high stress" environment with ease because at some point you chose not to be too bothered by it.
- turnsout 1y ago
  I think you might want to examine your assumption that there are people who "sail through life." It may seem that way from the outside, and you may even observe people handling everyday stressors well. But I promise you, everyone is struggling. Everyone suffers. (btw, that's actually the first Noble Truth of Buddhism). But you can learn ways to separate the stress you can't control from the stress you can control (your reaction/behavior), which is the foundation of CBT & ACT (and is the third Noble Truth). I personally don't think upbringing has a big impact on our natural ability to do this; I think it's mostly genetic. But it doesn't really matter. The good news is, the brain is plastic, and you absolutely can change your mind and behaviors pretty radically over time. This is the science behind psychological flexibility / ACT—and yes, it does replicate. When I find myself thinking "some people just have it easier," I try to ask myself "is that a workable worldview? If I follow that train of thought, is that moving me in the right direction? Or is it causing me to give up or give in to resentment and frustration? Could I just let it pass?" You don't have to argue with the thought; you can just notice it and let it float on by.
retrac 1y ago
I am deaf but not completely deaf. Some sounds I can hear and a lot of the sounds that are loud enough to come to my attention are annoying. Often not the same sounds that annoy other people, too. I'm reminded of a conversation with my friend who is fully Deaf from birth and a signer. Hearing people are a foreign culture for him. It's tricky to navigate the hearing world sometimes, when you don't know what what noises things make and how they are perceived. (Stacking metal or ceramic dishes is an almost silent experience for me, for example.) He noted that the sounds hearing people complain about seem related to control. Thunder? Not a problem. Natural and nothing you can do about it. The beep of a truck backing up? That's due to a person. It could be controlled. Rain? Not a problem. Sprinkler system? That's ultimately due to a person. It could be controlled. Microwave beep? Could have been controlled; you're supposed to hit the stop button at 0:01. Dog barking? Annoying because again, supposed to be controlled. Wild birds cawing at the crack of dawn? Filtered out and ignored. (Mostly, some people do complain about those.) Realizing you don't actually have control and that the other person might not actually have control is surprisingly relaxing, I've found. I suppose that's closely related to the "radical acceptance" of the article.
- turnsout 1y ago
  The creator/founder of ACT struggled with tinnitus—you might be interested to read his account. [0] [0]: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-out-of-your-mind/201603/the-zen-of-tinnitus-acceptance https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-out-of-your-mind...
- pwg 1y ago
  Your friend is remarkably prescient. I [1] can mostly "tune out and ignore" those "irritating" sounds that so many others complain, gripe, and stress about, and I have noticed the identical aspect your friend noticed, although I don't think I considered it a "control" aspect until now. Those that are "bothered" by some sound they ought to ignore always seem bothered by sounds where they believe they should have some ability to "control" their world (even, if, they really don't have any control over the truck in the alley beeping because it is reversing out). I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked by someone I'm with "aren't you bothered by ???" to which my answer almost always is some form of: "I hear it, but I don't let it bother me." Which almost always evokes an amazing surprise on the part of the individual who asked the question, often with a response along the lines of "I don't understand how you can do that." [1] for the record, not deaf, so I cannot fully relate to nor understand your world.
nis0s 1y ago
I don’t think anyone should tolerate what they find annoying, life is too short. If something or someone wants to keep you around, they should be less annoying to you.
- steve-atx-7600 1y ago
  I think you’re missing some of the point. What will you do when you find yourself stuck in traffic or in an airport security line that takes an hour to advance? Substitute some annoying situation that is beyond your control. If you react by upsetting yourself, then the advice is for you; otherwise, I don’t think you need it.
- bigmattystyles 1y ago
  Sometimes, it’s your own mind too. I have at times, pretty bad OCD in the form of terrible intrusive thoughts. They can trigger such distress in me that I’ve lost years of my life to them. Learning to tolerate them is essentially the first step to reducing their frequency in the conscious mind. That and meds but if I could just stop thinking some things, trust me, I would.
Aurornis 1y ago
I have seen some people turn themselves around with ACT-style therapy like this article introduces. Some can build up response patterns that turn minor daily annoyances into bigger problems that disrupt their mood for hours or even the rest of the day. These behaviors of blowing things out of proportion or letting them get under your skin can be both learned and unlearned, in addition to developing organically. Therapy techniques like this are an intentional way to practice unlearning bad habits and replacing with undeniably better habits that you want to practice. Raising and teaching young children is a learning experience for how some of these habits can develop and how to teach better responses to life's frustrations. Kids can get frustrated easily and their emotions run strong. Learning how to teach kids to control their emotions and respond appropriately to life is one of the core parenting challenges. I feel like I learned a lot about myself in the process of trying to figure out how to teach it to my kids and set a good example for them. On this topic, I've also observed a few cases in teens and adults who seemingly learn bad habits about becoming overly annoyed by small things, primarily from social media influencers. There is an entire universe of social media influencers dedicated to grievance-based entertainment, where they produce content about things that make you angry or feel like the victim. I think it's supposed to be cathartic or helpful, but in the process of producing content they reach further and further for topics to turn into grievances. The early trend of "emotional labor" being an invisible burden was the first time I saw this. The social media influencer version of emotional labor actually diverged from the literature definition and became an umbrella term meaning that your emotions were unpaid labor. If anyone did something that made you feel those emotions or you had to deal with someone else's emotions, you were supposed to feel burdened and victimized. There have been other trends like "mental load" that are variations of this idea that you have been made into the victim via other people or the world triggering your own emotional responses, which may have become exaggerated via these social influencers constantly bringing them front and center.
steve-atx-7600 1y ago
I’ve gotten a lot out of the writings of Albert Ellis whose work in the 50s and 60s became cognitive behavioral therapy. He would have said that it is irrational to demand that everyday inconveniences not exist, and by changing your thinking to accept and expect that unavoidable inconveniences happen, you will be less likely to allow these things to cause emotional distress. He credits the ancient stoics and other philosophers for influencing his methods. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/rational-emotive-behavior-therapy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/rational-em... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5836900/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5836900/
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  And he's merely rephrasing Freud: "The purpose of psychoanalysis is to replace neurotic misery to ordinary unhappiness." (paraphrase) But as the founder of CBT, he did build a huge amount on the previous work. It's one of the few formal psychoanalysis methodologies with considerable quantitative evidence documenting its successes.
CPLX 1y ago
This article seems fine, but I would say that physical acts are really the core go-to for this. Things like running a marathon or Zen meditation. There's nothing that helps you endure smaller unpleasant things more directly than just a regular practice of enduring them.
Scubabear68 1y ago
Getting locked up in jail will do wonders to cure people of this and many other things. However, the side effects are very severe.
martini333 1y ago
The triviality of this articles coping mechanisms annoyed me.
iamflimflam1 1y ago
I’m increasingly finding things easier to deal with by categorising them into: things I can control; things that are beyond my control.
- mtoner23 1y ago
  I find most people can't accurately sort the two though. They perceive what others do as within their control and it drives them mad

60 points by zdw 1y ago

I've been reading No Mud, No Lotus recently (https://www.parallax.org/product/no-mud-no-lotus/ https://www.parallax.org/product/no-mud-no-lotus/) by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and this is very much the same advice. This book has brought me immense joy, I'd recommend it to anyone. It's fascinating how much Buddhism has gotten "right".

_yb2s 1y ago
This article is about ACT which borrows these techniques from the ancient stoics, but there is a lot of similarities between stoicism and buddhism, zen especially.
Lyngbakr 1y ago
I certainly agree with your take on Buddhism, but I often find that sage advice is buried amongst spiritual waffle in Buddhist books.
- colechristensen 1y ago
  But that's what religion is, wisdom and nonsense mixed together by people who didn't yet have the benefit of the great filter to separate the wisdom from the nonsense: science.
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  The sheer number of annoying twats who tell me that The Book of I Ching holds great secrets has defnitely helped obscure any great secrets it contains.
sph 11mo ago
Thank you, I'll pick it up based on your recommendation alone.

begueradj 1y ago

Can't read the article from phone.

faeyanpiraat 1y ago
That must be annoying
Aurornis 1y ago
For what it’s worth, site works without problems on iPhone.
steve-atx-7600 1y ago
DAMNIT!!!!!
ranger_danger 1y ago
That's how they test your patience.

ndr42 1y ago

From the article: Micro-stressors such as running late [...] represent the unavoidable pain that comes with being human. Is running late really unavoidable? I think there are proven strategies to avoid it. (My wife and one of my sons on the other hand would agree that it is in fact unavoidable) Edit: added missing word

svat 1y ago
In your case it may help to read it as: Micro-stressors such as others running late [...] represent the unavoidable pain that comes with being human.
m_a_g 1y ago
In the long run, it is unavoidable. No matter how prepared you are, there will be something that will cause you to run late. It's just a matter of how frequently this happens.
mercanlIl 1y ago
In practice? Yes it’s unavoidable. Unless you build in enough buffer to account for _every_ possible scenario out of your control, the probability of running late is non-zero.
cm2012 1y ago
I think 15% of people have a true mental block on timing
Aurornis 1y ago
Not the best example they could have used because the root cause is ambiguous. I try to be prepared and on-time, but being late some times is unavoidable if there’s a car accident on the freeway that leaves me locked in a traffic, I get a flat tire, my flight is delayed, or any number of other unpredictable things outside of my control happen. I think that’s what the article is trying to talk about.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
1y ago

hexbin010 1y ago

I have insane admiration for and quite a serious amount of jealousy of people who are able to sail through life with with every setback sailing right past them, leaving no trace or mark. I've noticed it more in people who had a comfortable upringing and no money worries. Oh dear, dinner is burnt? No worries just order takeout! Lost your passport a few days before a holiday - no sweat, just pay the fast track processing fee. Car broken down? Just jump in a taxi. Coffee ruined your top? Just buy another one. Etc. Money often means far fewer worries in life, and kids must definitely notice and feel that. As you can probably guess, I grew up relatively poor. Every day/week something would be causing my parents stress, often related to money. No amount of grounding themselves or belly breathing would have alleviated the stress. I know the article is about smaller things, many of which of money can't fix, but I do wonder if growing up in a low-stress environment (largely because of no money issues) instills something that enables you to not sweat the minor things in life

throw_this_one 1y ago
Probably it's learned behavior from the parents. When your parents had good intentions but really panicked or scolded you like the world was going to end when you did something wrong... that can have a subconscious impact in your life that every wrong move and every thing that happened could be a matter of survival.
ranger_danger 1y ago
I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with money, or even the stress of the environment inherently, I think it's all about how people choose to deal with their problems. You could be raised in a poor home and grow up to a work in a "high stress" environment with ease because at some point you chose not to be too bothered by it.
turnsout 1y ago
I think you might want to examine your assumption that there are people who "sail through life." It may seem that way from the outside, and you may even observe people handling everyday stressors well. But I promise you, everyone is struggling. Everyone suffers. (btw, that's actually the first Noble Truth of Buddhism). But you can learn ways to separate the stress you can't control from the stress you can control (your reaction/behavior), which is the foundation of CBT & ACT (and is the third Noble Truth). I personally don't think upbringing has a big impact on our natural ability to do this; I think it's mostly genetic. But it doesn't really matter. The good news is, the brain is plastic, and you absolutely can change your mind and behaviors pretty radically over time. This is the science behind psychological flexibility / ACT—and yes, it does replicate. When I find myself thinking "some people just have it easier," I try to ask myself "is that a workable worldview? If I follow that train of thought, is that moving me in the right direction? Or is it causing me to give up or give in to resentment and frustration? Could I just let it pass?" You don't have to argue with the thought; you can just notice it and let it float on by.

retrac 1y ago

I am deaf but not completely deaf. Some sounds I can hear and a lot of the sounds that are loud enough to come to my attention are annoying. Often not the same sounds that annoy other people, too. I'm reminded of a conversation with my friend who is fully Deaf from birth and a signer. Hearing people are a foreign culture for him. It's tricky to navigate the hearing world sometimes, when you don't know what what noises things make and how they are perceived. (Stacking metal or ceramic dishes is an almost silent experience for me, for example.) He noted that the sounds hearing people complain about seem related to control. Thunder? Not a problem. Natural and nothing you can do about it. The beep of a truck backing up? That's due to a person. It could be controlled. Rain? Not a problem. Sprinkler system? That's ultimately due to a person. It could be controlled. Microwave beep? Could have been controlled; you're supposed to hit the stop button at 0:01. Dog barking? Annoying because again, supposed to be controlled. Wild birds cawing at the crack of dawn? Filtered out and ignored. (Mostly, some people do complain about those.) Realizing you don't actually have control and that the other person might not actually have control is surprisingly relaxing, I've found. I suppose that's closely related to the "radical acceptance" of the article.

turnsout 1y ago
The creator/founder of ACT struggled with tinnitus—you might be interested to read his account. [0] [0]: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-out-of-your-mind/201603/the-zen-of-tinnitus-acceptance https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-out-of-your-mind...
pwg 1y ago
Your friend is remarkably prescient. I [1] can mostly "tune out and ignore" those "irritating" sounds that so many others complain, gripe, and stress about, and I have noticed the identical aspect your friend noticed, although I don't think I considered it a "control" aspect until now. Those that are "bothered" by some sound they ought to ignore always seem bothered by sounds where they believe they should have some ability to "control" their world (even, if, they really don't have any control over the truck in the alley beeping because it is reversing out). I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked by someone I'm with "aren't you bothered by ???" to which my answer almost always is some form of: "I hear it, but I don't let it bother me." Which almost always evokes an amazing surprise on the part of the individual who asked the question, often with a response along the lines of "I don't understand how you can do that." [1] for the record, not deaf, so I cannot fully relate to nor understand your world.

nis0s 1y ago

I don’t think anyone should tolerate what they find annoying, life is too short. If something or someone wants to keep you around, they should be less annoying to you.

steve-atx-7600 1y ago
I think you’re missing some of the point. What will you do when you find yourself stuck in traffic or in an airport security line that takes an hour to advance? Substitute some annoying situation that is beyond your control. If you react by upsetting yourself, then the advice is for you; otherwise, I don’t think you need it.
bigmattystyles 1y ago
Sometimes, it’s your own mind too. I have at times, pretty bad OCD in the form of terrible intrusive thoughts. They can trigger such distress in me that I’ve lost years of my life to them. Learning to tolerate them is essentially the first step to reducing their frequency in the conscious mind. That and meds but if I could just stop thinking some things, trust me, I would.

Aurornis 1y ago

I have seen some people turn themselves around with ACT-style therapy like this article introduces. Some can build up response patterns that turn minor daily annoyances into bigger problems that disrupt their mood for hours or even the rest of the day. These behaviors of blowing things out of proportion or letting them get under your skin can be both learned and unlearned, in addition to developing organically. Therapy techniques like this are an intentional way to practice unlearning bad habits and replacing with undeniably better habits that you want to practice. Raising and teaching young children is a learning experience for how some of these habits can develop and how to teach better responses to life's frustrations. Kids can get frustrated easily and their emotions run strong. Learning how to teach kids to control their emotions and respond appropriately to life is one of the core parenting challenges. I feel like I learned a lot about myself in the process of trying to figure out how to teach it to my kids and set a good example for them. On this topic, I've also observed a few cases in teens and adults who seemingly learn bad habits about becoming overly annoyed by small things, primarily from social media influencers. There is an entire universe of social media influencers dedicated to grievance-based entertainment, where they produce content about things that make you angry or feel like the victim. I think it's supposed to be cathartic or helpful, but in the process of producing content they reach further and further for topics to turn into grievances. The early trend of "emotional labor" being an invisible burden was the first time I saw this. The social media influencer version of emotional labor actually diverged from the literature definition and became an umbrella term meaning that your emotions were unpaid labor. If anyone did something that made you feel those emotions or you had to deal with someone else's emotions, you were supposed to feel burdened and victimized. There have been other trends like "mental load" that are variations of this idea that you have been made into the victim via other people or the world triggering your own emotional responses, which may have become exaggerated via these social influencers constantly bringing them front and center.

steve-atx-7600 1y ago

I’ve gotten a lot out of the writings of Albert Ellis whose work in the 50s and 60s became cognitive behavioral therapy. He would have said that it is irrational to demand that everyday inconveniences not exist, and by changing your thinking to accept and expect that unavoidable inconveniences happen, you will be less likely to allow these things to cause emotional distress. He credits the ancient stoics and other philosophers for influencing his methods. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/rational-emotive-behavior-therapy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/rational-em... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5836900/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5836900/

IAmBroom 1y ago
And he's merely rephrasing Freud: "The purpose of psychoanalysis is to replace neurotic misery to ordinary unhappiness." (paraphrase) But as the founder of CBT, he did build a huge amount on the previous work. It's one of the few formal psychoanalysis methodologies with considerable quantitative evidence documenting its successes.

CPLX 1y ago

This article seems fine, but I would say that physical acts are really the core go-to for this. Things like running a marathon or Zen meditation. There's nothing that helps you endure smaller unpleasant things more directly than just a regular practice of enduring them.

Scubabear68 1y ago

Getting locked up in jail will do wonders to cure people of this and many other things. However, the side effects are very severe.

martini333 1y ago

The triviality of this articles coping mechanisms annoyed me.

iamflimflam1 1y ago

I’m increasingly finding things easier to deal with by categorising them into: things I can control; things that are beyond my control.

mtoner23 1y ago
I find most people can't accurately sort the two though. They perceive what others do as within their control and it drives them mad